From the Mt. Pleasant, MI Morning Sun. Graphic by Anthony
WASHINGTON – There once was an Indianapolis concert featuring 50 pianos. Splendid instruments, pianos. Still, 50 might have been excessive.
As is today’s chorus summoning us to save the planet.
In the history of developed democracies with literate publics served by mass media, there is no precedent for today’s media enlistment in the crusade to promote global warming “awareness.” Concerning this, journalism, which fancies itself skeptical and nonconforming, is neither.
The incessant hectoring by the media-political complex’s “consciousness-raising” campaign has provoked a comic riposte in the form of “The Goode Family,” an animated ABC entertainment program on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Cartoons seem, alas, to be the most effective means of seizing a mass audience’s attention. Still, the program is welcome evidence of the bursting of what has been called “the green bubble.”
Gerald and Helen Goode, their children and dog Che (when supervised, he is a vegan; when unsupervised, squirrels disappear) live in a college town, where T-shirts and other media instruct (“Meat is murder”), admonish (“Don’t kill wood”) and exhort (“Support our troops … and their opponents”). The college, where Gerald works, gives students tenure. And when Gerald says his department needs money to raise the percentage of minority employees, his boss cheerily replies, “Or we could just fire three white guys. Everybody wins!” Helen shops at the One Earth store, where community shaming enforces social responsibility: “Attention One Earth shoppers, the driver of the SUV is in aisle four. He’s wearing the baseball cap.”
The New York Times television critic disapproves. The show “feels aggressively off-kilter with the current mood, as if it had been incubated in the early to mid-’90s, when it was possible to find global-warming skeptics among even the reasonable and informed.”
That is a perfect (because completely complacent) sample of the grating smugness of the planet-savers, delivered by an entertainment writer: Reasonable dissent is impossible. Cue the pianos.
“The Goode Family” does not threaten Jonathan Swift’s standing as the premier English-language satirist. But when a Goode child apologizes to his parent for driving too much, and the parent responds, “It’s OK … what’s important is that you feel guilty about it,” the program touches upon an important phenomenon: ecology as psychology.
In “The Green Bubble: Why Environmentalism Keeps Imploding” (The New Republic, May 20), Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of “Break Through: Why We Can’t Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists,” say that a few years ago, being green “moved beyond politics.”
Gestures – bringing reusable grocery bags to the store, purchasing a $4 heirloom tomato, inflating tires, weatherizing windows — “gained fresh urgency” and “were suddenly infused with grand significance.”
Green consumption became “positional consumption” that identified the consumer as a member of a moral and intellectual elite. A 2007 survey found that 57 percent of Prius purchasers said they bought their car because “it makes a statement about me.”
Honda, alert to the bull market in status effects, reshaped its 2009 Insight hybrid to look like a Prius. Nordhaus and Shellenberger note the telling “insignificance,” as environmental measures, of planting gardens or using fluorescent bulbs.
Their significance is therapeutic, but not for the planet. They make people feel better: “After all, we can’t escape the fact that we depend on an infrastructure – roads, buildings, sewage systems, power plants, electrical grids, etc. – that requires huge quantities of fossil fuels.
But the ecological irrelevance of these practices was beside the point.”
The point of “utopian environmentalism” was to reduce guilt. During the green bubble, many Americans became “captivated by the twin thoughts that human civilization could soon come crashing down – and that we are on the cusp of a sudden leap forward in consciousness, one that will allow us to heal ourselves, our society, and our planet. Apocalyptic fears meld seamlessly into utopian hopes.”
Suddenly, commonplace acts – e.g., buying light bulbs – infused pedestrian lives with cosmic importance. But: “Greens often note that the changing global climate will have the greatest impact on the world’s poor; they neglect to mention that the poor also have the most to gain from development fueled by cheap fossil fuels like coal. For the poor, the climate is already dangerous.”
Now, say Nordhaus and Shellenberger, “the green bubble” has burst, pricked by Americans’ intensified reluctance to pursue greenness at a cost to economic growth. The dark side of utopianism is “escapism and a disengagement from reality that marks all bubbles, green or financial.”
Re-engagement with reality is among the recession’s benefits.
George Will’s e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com.
Read the complete column at the Morning Sun
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“11-Year-Old Graduates From LA College….Astrophysics is his passion”
but…
“I feel it’s a waste of time playing video games because it’s not helping humanity in any way,” says the 11-year-old, who wants to use his knowledge to change the world.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/11-Year-Old-Graduates-From-LA-College.html?yhp=1
Chances are he won’t be accepted in NASA 🙂
“Chances are he won’t be accepted in NASA :-)”
And he won’t become POTUS until he’s tall enough to read TOTUS… 🙂
“(Recent studies say that all human population could live and prosper in an area such as the state of Texas, without any problem)”
And Texas says, “Come on down!!!”
You can still drive a pickup or an SUV here and you can own a gun for protection, for hunting or just because you want to. We have plenty of nuclear, wind, coal and lots of other kinds of energy here and ain’t no one suggesting we don’t use it. We got beaches, rivers, lakes and lots of pretty hill country. We have industry and people that believe progress ain’t a four-letter word. Our Democrats here are kinda out of the mainstream to the right some and our most prominent Republican is really a libertarian. Actually he is a throwback to the early days of America when the Constitution was still alive. When you drive down a country road here people still wave at you. We have had warming in Texas for a long long time and most of the oldtimers say it’s actually cooler now than when they were growing up.
You better get down here before we put up the fence on the Red River.
In the last statement “Re-engagement with reality is among the recession’s benefits” – really says it all – “greeness” is a luxury only affordable when the economy is healthy & always only by those who are relatively well off. The greens essentially are sewing the seeds of their own demise because their ideals in general reduce the health of the economy & reduce personal wealth.
How ironic!
It is the idea of scrap metal drives during WW2. It wasn’t the amount of metal collected. It was the participation.
I keep telling my mate that if she really wants to do something for the environment throw the refuse into the dustbin. If it becomes worth something the dumps will be mined for it. She pays me no mind. She is on a mission.
Disputin (01:40:45) :
<i> for italics on </i> for italics off
<b> for bold on </b> for bold off
evanmjones asked: Little what age?
Wiki has a reasonably accurate, easily understood precis. Enjoy. :0)
I see that I should have included “insert smiley face indicating mordant sarcasm”.
Where do the CFLs fall down?
Good list, but you didn’t mention the fact that they make one wonder if one is in a mortuary in a psychiatric hospital in a graveyard on Titan.
George Monbiot’s latest: “Newspapers must stop taking advertising from environmental villains”
But even the claim that we should leave people to make their own decisions is inconsistent and hypocritical. Where are the ads for pornography in these papers?
We are making decisions on our readers’ behalf and deciding that there are certain points of view they shouldn’t be exposed to, or certain activities in which they shouldn’t be encouraged to engage.
What I am asking is for the newspapers to refine their view of which advertisements are and are not acceptable. Specifically, I am calling on them in the first instance to drop ads for cars which produce more than 150g of CO2/km, and to drop direct advertising for flights, on the grounds that both these products cause unequivocal and unnecessary harm to the environment.
Clearly, when George becomes Dear Leader, WUWT will be banned and expressing a skeptical opinion will be a crime.
Wikipedia on global warming? You mean William Connolley on global warming.
Talk about making fun of CO2 induced global warming theory, has anybody been following the comic strip by Wiley, Non Sequitur? He’s right on the money.
“” Drew Latta (09:54:32) : a “reconnecting with reality” situation would lead folks to more energy and money saving ways. “”
Drill in Alaska until gas is at $1.00 a gallon and stays there, and winter heating cost are cut by 75%. Then we sell the less expensive oil to the rest of the world and come flying out of the recession.
This is possible and should be done.
All the while this is happening a 0.25% tax, both here and on exports, could be put on petroleum that would go to study of alternate energy. We then would discover, and have seamless transition to, cleaner, and just as inexpensive, energy.
END OF STORY. 🙂
Re: the TV critic: what can you expect from a journalist – these people’s very livelihoods depend on sensation; they are one of the prime forces that initiated, and are maintaining, the AGW scare. Just today, I heard from a colleague that she recently saw a television special on a reputable educational network in Canada “informing” the public that the Irukandji jellyfish (q.v. – nasty little buggers) have shown up in Florida, and that this is a result of AGW.
Are these people so grossly stupid as to imagine this is even possible? Can they not look at a map of the world and figure the distances involved? What we have here, after extensive Googling, is very clearly a few isolated cases of what is now known as “Irukandji Syndrome”, the result, almost certainly, of a previously unknown jellyfish with similar toxicity finally causing envenenation that has been CORRECTLY DIAGNOSED.
My reasoning is twofold: first, it has been variously estimated that as many as 12 million lifeforms have yet to be discovered and properly described on this planet. And two – the Irukandji itself, numerous off Australia’s north coast, was not known to science until 1964. Prior to this, people envenenated by this minuscule creature were thought to have suffered heart attacks.
The line between “respectable” science journalism, particularly on television, has been blurred into nonexistence in recent years, largely due to the AGW scare. Everyone’s on the bandwagon, and the cash registers are ringing. A quick look at the schedule for Discovery Channel will confirm this.
Surely the global warmers are religious.
They say that most skeptics have a streak of Creationism. I won’t deny that, though I ‘ve never seen it, personally. But I do say that most AGW advocates have more than a streak of Revelationism, and I’ve seen that a lot.
“Newspapers must stop taking advertising from environmental villains”
Aw, c’mom; environmentalists have as much right to advertise as the rest of us.
Right now there’s a program on channel 10 here in Australia called Telling The Truth. It’s about 7 people “trained” by Al Gore to be Climate Project Presenters where they “take the message” back to their communities. Crazy, but so funny when they present “climate facts” to their communities. Ah well, I think I’ll switch channels to 7 and watch V8 racing….(Mind you they too are “getting on the ethanol fuel and planting tree to offset their carbon footprint band wagon” – sad really).
Re: George Monbiot.
A person with a name so rich in anagrammatic revelation of his inner self should be far, far more careful in what he demands and how much of himself he exposes.
It’s a good thing the green bubble burst after we elected a green president, a greener Congress, got over 100 billion dollars in stimulus funds into green initiatives, a cap and trade bill on the verge of passing, the nearing of a global climate treaty being signed, and an energy bill that will strip subsidies from oil, coal, and nuclear.
HA. Don’t forgot that you see green jobs promoted in commercials and policy everywhere and anywhere.
George E. Smith (09:50:01) :
‘I offset my carbon footprint by buying nice and semi-expensive carbon fiber fly rods;…..’
Under the CO2 Cap and tax, we will need CO2 Czar with a support team of five new government employees per corporation plus a corporate compliance officer with a support team of five new employees to figure out if your fly rod is really carbon natural.
Of course, to cover the cost (both government and private) there will be a price increase regardless of the carbon footprint.
You may have to go back to using bamboo.
Pragmatic (10:57:15). Just in case you were following my html advice, I said substitute arrow brackets “<" for the curly brackets "{" in my example. To write an example one has to use something other than arrow brackets or the code becomes invisible and therefore useless for the purpose of example. The word THIS becomes bold when written with arrow brackets, but remains standard when written {b}THIS{/b} way as an example.
MartinGAtkins (17:27:52) – that’s clever! Been puzzling the source to see how you did it.
LilacWine (09:43:47) : As per my mate, when you break a CFL it releases mercury gas, not liquid. All you need to do is clear the room for a few minutes (and I presume ventilate the room for a while.) I know I broke a CFL I didn’t see any liquid mercury. I’m not a fan of mercury by any measure but these precautionary measures seem quite simple.
This is true. It also releases dust contaminated with mercury. If this dust gets on clothes or bedding the EPA recommends trashing it. Don’t wash it as they say it will contaminate the washing machine. Yes, the room with a broken CFL needs to be ventilated and everyone needs to leave for 15 mins. or so. The question I have is what if it’s a windy day? If you open all the windows isn’t this just going to blow the mercury-laden dust around the room?
Also the cleanup is pretty involved. The EPA guidelines keep saying to seal the containers containing the debris in plastic bags and to dispose of them immediately. Cleaning up a broken incandescent is much simpler.
Mercury is one of those substances whose poisonous qualities vary depending on the vector of entry into the body. I think the way it goes is it’s less poisonous if you swallow it than if you inhale it. The dosage also matters, as with any toxin. I heard a story from someone last year saying that he had come upon many cases of people trying to melt down gold in their own house without proper ventilation. In each case everyone in the house died due to the mercury vapors that were released. So mercury gas is nothing to fool around with.
If I were a parent I’d be most worried about having one of these bulbs break on me, because I wouldn’t be able to be sure I had gotten all of the residue. If I had toddlers or young ones I’d be worried about them crawling and playing where a CFL had broken in the past unless it was on linoleum, tile, hardwood flooring, or some other hard surface I could wipe down.
I recognized myself in some of the comments above. I’ve been green a lot of my life. I walk where I can. I don’t use my gas car much, and I prefer small cars, because I don’t need a big car. I recycle all sorts of items as I’m able. I live in a town that believes in recycling and we recycle all the typical stuff, plus many plastics, electronics, scrap metal, phone books, corrugated cardboard, paperboard, and more. I try to turn out lights I don’t use (I use incandescents–not too keen on the mercury filled CFLs). I run fans and open windows instead of the AC if it’s not too hot outside. I reuse my grocery bags when I go to the food store, and I have a few reusable ones. A lot of this is to keep down pollution and energy bills. Plus I don’t like wasting stuff as a rule, though I’m not anal about it.
The thing that greenies get me on is despite the fact that I pay attention to the science I don’t see good scientific support for the theory of AGW. Quite often the greens don’t have a good counter-argument except to challenge me on my credentials. I’m not a climate scientist, so that makes my own study of the issue invalid. Never mind that James Hansen has no climate science credentials himself if you look at his bio. I don’t have a degree I can point to that gives me instant credibility (though my computer science degree helps some to listen re: the climate models), but I have enough of a head for science that I can tell a good (or at least promising) or bad scientific theory when I hear it. Most greens can only point to anecdotes, which are interesting, but don’t prove scientific points. The argument I hate the most is that “tens of thousands of the world’s scientists say it’s so, so it must be true”. Science is not a democracy. A majority does not define scientific validity. As Einstein said, it takes only ONE scientist with good contradictory evidence to prove a theory wrong. As Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” and the evidence presented by the alarmists has been less than extraordinary.
Thanks Roger. Did not read carefully enough.
Sandy (12:19:26)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fimbulvetr The time before Ragnarök.
It was 650 BC when an unexplained climate change affected all the Bronze Age cultures in Europe with colder and wetter climate, and tribes from the Scandinavian Nordic Bronze Age cultures pushed downwards into the European continent.
Krakatoa was the likely cause of a later mass migration with huge consequences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%E2%80%93536
Just Want Results… (18:32:56)
You wrote “Wikipedia on global warming? You mean William Connolley on global warming.” Indeed I do, hence my opening statement. “It’s surprising what can be discovered from Wikipedia, notwithstanding the censorship of articles contradicting the AGW bias. There is mention of warmer times and then much colder times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age”
There are many other references to changing climates being responsible for varying human history. Connolley could not very well go through every article, altering the text to reflect his beliefs, because, for example, any man made CO2 in 650 BC would have been produced by burning wood, not coal. Thus he has to let it stand, (cause unexplained), that a worsening climate just happened to occur at that time. Such a drastic change in the Nordic environment, forced the populations to move south, influencing the peoples with whom they came into contact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_Europe
I am also fairly sure that Connolley would alter this paragraph below, if he thought could get away with it. It’s the sun, not CO2 that warms us and that fact is anathema to him.
“Don Easterbrook, a Professor Emeritus of geology at Western Washington University, has claimed that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between sunspot activity and measured changes in global temperatures on Earth.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_spots
This blog is becoming obsessed with pianos. They have been mentioned twice in one week now.
At this point , I would like to offer myself for the post of:
Honorary Emeritus Resident Pianist, Ex Symposium to WUWT
As a great-great-great-grandpupil of Beethoven (true), I feel I am excellently qualified for the post (but please, not the acronym).
By the nature of the job, being an old crock who doesn’t get paid I never turn up to play anything; this a good allegory of the first law of thermodynamics, and yet another illustration that the warmist’s positive feedbacks are wrong.
The effect of a few (7 or 8) pianos, especially if tuned separately and then brought together, can, like my singing, cause quite severe local precipitation effects; but this is only weather. However, the response (like CO2) is logarithmic, and the effect of 50 may only cause slight local flooding.
The warmists are desparate now, and may even sieze on this for their cause. So if you need an authoritative article on the effects of grand pianos on global average temperature, then just let me know.
Back in 2000 I played the Ferrari Steinway (a Model D done out in Ferrari red).
Is this what stopped the apocalypse in its tracks?
Interesting (For me at least) factoid, the mirrors in the Keck telescope on Hawaii are cleaned with……………….CO2!!